JPH0664252A - Printing equipment having emulation mode - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the uncontrolled movement of a printer due to a setting error, and to reset printing easily in the printer capable of printing in an emulation-mode. CONSTITUTION:A printing equipment capable of printing in an emulation-mode enabling selective connection to various computer systems in addition to a native mode is mounted. A means storing or setting an emulation-program, a means receiving printing information from the computer systems connected, a means printing information according to the emulation program, and decision means (S3, S4) deciding whether or not printing information is adapted to printing environment set by the emulation program are provided, printing is suspended on the basis of the result of decision, and printing information received up to that time is destroyed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer capable of selectively emulating a plurality of different types of computer systems, and more particularly to a printer suitable for a multifunctional digital printer.
Here, the computer system represents not only an operating system but an entire system including application software. Therefore, if the application software is different, the computer system may be different when viewed from the printer side.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an emulation program is usually selected by an operator directly on an operation panel. However, if the operator makes an erroneous operation when selecting an emulation program, the page printer may run out of control. In the past, however, such a runaway is a countermeasure against an operator error. Has not been applied.

Therefore, when such a runaway occurs, dozens of sheets of paper are wasted depending on the print information.

Further, when the remaining print information is stored in the buffer memory, if the printing is interrupted in the middle,
You must clear the data in the buffer. Particularly, the work of clearing the data already spooled in the external storage device is very troublesome.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks of conventional printing devices or printers which can operate in emulation mode.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, there is provided printing in emulation mode that allows selective connection to a plurality of different types of computer systems in addition to native mode. A printing device capable of storing or setting an emulation program, receiving print information from a connected computer system, and printing the print information according to the emulation program. This is solved by a printing device provided with a judgment means for judging whether or not the information conforms to the printing environment set by the emulation program.

In one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a second judgment means for making a judgment as to whether to continue or interrupt the printing when the judgment result of the judgment means is NO.

In another embodiment of the present invention, a temporary storage means or a buffer for temporarily storing the received print information is provided, and the temporary print information storage means is cleared when the interruption of printing is decided. .

In still another embodiment of the present invention, when the second judgment means decides to interrupt the printing, means for discarding the data received from the computer system thereafter without reading the data is provided. To be

In the first judging means, the computer
Analyze the command included in the print information from the system,
It is determined whether or not the command is an illegal command for the emulation program, and if the command is illegal, it can be determined that the printing environment set by the emulation program is unsuitable.

Further, in the judging means, the information amount per page of the information supplied from the computer system is obtained, compared with a set threshold value, and if smaller than the threshold value, it is supplied from the computer system. It is possible to determine that the print information to be printed is incompatible with the printing environment set by the emulation program.

[0012]

As described above, according to the present invention, the print information from the computer system on the host side is emulated by the printer or printer.
By providing a judgment means for judging whether or not the printing environment of the program is suitable and a second judgment means for judging whether or not to interrupt the printing based on the judgment result of the judgment means, the printing apparatus is provided. Alternatively, it is possible to reliably prevent runaway of the printer, and to prevent waste of transfer paper such as blank printing. Further, depending on the judgment result of the second judgment means, by providing a means for clearing the reception buffer for storing the print information from the host side and a means for discarding the subsequent reception information without reading it, after the restart of printing. It is possible to easily reset the values in a short time.

The above-mentioned objects, other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing the overall construction of a laser printer according to the first embodiment of the present invention. As is apparent from FIG. 1, the laser printer is composed of a printer controller 1, a printer engine 2, and a panel device 3, and is connected to a host computer system 4 which is a higher-level device.

Here, the printer engine means that an electrostatic latent image is generated and developed on the photoconductor in accordance with the print information and the control signal from the printer controller, and the transfer paper is supplied from the paper supply unit to transfer the image. Also, the mechanisms for fixing and forming an image are collectively referred to. Such a printer engine itself may be a known one.

The printer controller 1 is a printer
It is connected to the printer engine 2 via the engine interface 10 and to the panel device 3 via the panel interface 12. The panel device 3 is a device that allows an operator to interactively set a print mode, control parameters, and the like. Further, the printer controller 1 is connected to the host computer system 4 via the host interface 14. Various interfaces 1
Reference numerals 0, 12 and 14 are central control units (hereinafter abbreviated as CPU) 2 which are the center of the controller via a bus 16.
It is connected to 0.

Further, the printer controller 1 includes a frame memory 22 for storing various frame modes and a random access functioning as a buffer for temporarily storing print information and providing a work area. -Memory (RAM) 24, font ROM (Read Only Memory) 2 that stores font information
6. Program ROM 2 for storing print programs
8 and a non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) 30 used to store printer mode setting information and the like, and is connected to the CPU 20 via the berth 16.
Reference numeral 32 is an IC card that is detachably inserted into the slot in order to supply control information from the outside. It should be noted that the components and functions described above are known in the art and need not be further described.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment of the present invention applied to the printer having the above configuration will be described.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing an example of processing by the CPU 20 of FIG. 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention. The corresponding program can be stored in the program ROM 28.

Referring to FIG. 2, before starting the printing, first, the environment setting of the printer, that is, the emulation program of the computer system for printing is started (step S1). This activation is realized by presetting various emulation programs through the panel device 3 and selecting a desired emulation program, or by selecting an emulation program externally given by the IC card 32. can do. After that, printing is started (step S
2). Here, if the command system in the environment set on the printer side is different from the command system sent from the computer or the host system 4 due to incorrect setting selection, the printer does not operate normally and the As mentioned, runaway can occur. Therefore, according to the present invention, a command analysis step S3 is provided to analyze the command from the host side and determine whether printing can be executed by the activated emulation program, that is, whether the host side command is illegal. (Step S4). When a command that cannot be analyzed is detected (Yes in step S4)
In step S5, it is determined whether the printing is to be continued or interrupted (step S5). This judgment is left to the operator, and if the operation is to be continued, the reception is possible (No in step S5) and normal processing is restarted (step S6). When interrupting (Yes in step S5),
First, the data in the reception buffer (RAM) 24 is cleared (step S7). After that, the remaining data supplied from the host side is discarded until the end of reception (step S9) (step S8).

In this way, wasteful printing can be prevented by setting the environment of the printer again (S1) and restarting printing after the reception is completed. In addition, due to the function (S7) of clearing the buffer (RAM 24), the recovery operation can be easily performed.

It is easy to determine whether the command systems match. Generally, print information can be divided into control commands, character commands, and image data. Of these, the control code has characteristics depending on the command system, and if processing is performed with different command systems, control commands that cannot be analyzed will appear. The analysis / judgment step is executed based on such a control code.

In the judgment step S5, the normal processing S
If 6 is selected, it is determined in step S10 whether printing is possible. If not (No), the process returns to the command analysis step S3, and the above procedure is repeated. It is also possible to deal with an erroneous judgment made by the operator. If it is determined that printing is possible in step S10, printing continues (step S1).
1).

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing a second embodiment of the present invention. The processing shown in FIG. 3 is provided with steps S103 and 104 instead of performing the command analysis in the determination steps S3 and S4 of the processing of FIG. 2, and determines the difference between the command systems based on the print information amount. Generally, it can be considered that the amount of print information per page is a certain threshold value or more (for example, 8 bytes or more in character code). Therefore, in step S103, the print information amount per page sent from the host side is obtained (step S103), and if it is below the threshold value, it is determined that the command systems on the printer side and the host side are different ( 104), and shifts to the interruption step S5 described in FIG. The other processing is the same as that shown in FIG.

[0026]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, the command system of the print information sent from the host computer system side and the print environment (emulation program etc.) set on the printer side. When the command system of is different, not only can the printing operation be stopped to prevent the printer from running out of control, but it is also possible to easily reset the print environment after that by clearing the receive buffer. .

While the preferred embodiment of the invention has been described above, it will be apparent that many variations and modifications of the invention are possible in light of the above teachings. For example, although a laser printer has been described above as an example, it goes without saying that the present invention can be readily applied to other types of printers that are capable of emulation mode.
Therefore, it is to be understood that, within the scope of the invention, the invention may be practiced differently than that described above.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a printer to which the present invention can be applied.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart for explaining the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart for explaining a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printer Controller 2 Printer Engine 4 Host Computer System 20 CPU 24 Receive Buffer 28 Program ROM

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A printing device capable of printing in an emulation mode that enables selective connection to a plurality of different types of computer systems in addition to the native mode, and stores or sets the emulation program. Means (28, 32), means (14) for receiving print information from the connected computer system (4), and means (2, 10) for printing the print information according to the emulation program. A first determining whether the print information conforms to a print environment set by the emulation program,
A printing apparatus, characterized in that the judgment means (20; S3, S4) is provided. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the determination result of the first determination means is NO, a second determination means for determining whether to continue or interrupt the printing. A printing apparatus provided with (S5). 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a temporary storage unit (24) for temporarily storing the received print information, wherein the second judgment unit interrupts printing. A printing apparatus comprising means (20; S7) for clearing the temporary print information storage means when determined. 4. The printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when the second determination unit determines that the printing is to be interrupted, the data received from the computer system (4) after that is discarded without being read. A printing device comprising means (S8) for performing. 5. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first determination unit (20; S3, S).
In 4), the command included in the print information from the computer system is analyzed, and it is determined whether or not the command is illegal to the emulation program. A printing apparatus, which determines that the printing environment set by the emulation program is not suitable. 6. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first determination unit obtains and sets an information amount per page of information supplied from the computer system. Means (S103, S104) for comparing with a threshold value and determining that the print information supplied from the computer system is incompatible with the print environment set by the emulation program when the threshold value is smaller than the threshold value A printing device characterized by the above.